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Good Stuff in here. Good info Pilot and also, way to help out a fellow enthusiast with the sports turbo catch.
Congrats Ken. Really want to hear & see a run file on this car once she is back to life again.
I also ask myself, will I ever see her again...LoL. Maybe Vegas next year.

Actually that is a good mod but it has since been disused further that it's actually the washer size that is important. The Quake mod that does the insert fixes the problem as well but from discussion it seems the larger washer does a even better job to spreading the load.

I don't it was actually posted on face shit and they blocked me due to not using my real name. Then they ask for an ID and all that BS so Ill have to start another account it seems.

Anyhow it was a larger washer from ARP then what comes in the kit. As you can see from the 2j guys they are having HG problems now once the washer sinks in and the torque is lost.

IF you do the head insert and put another washer it won't help. The insert being smaller will still dig in first. According to the 7m guy on face shit the larger washer that maxes out the space is the best bet. Now if ARP made the insert head wider then that can also work and better but I don't think they have one maybe which is why they go with a wider washer?

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It took longer than I thought it would, but it’s time for Phase II and the finishing up of this build thread. As usual, things didn’t go exactly as planned, including the time it’s taken me to get to this point.

I delivered my car to SP Engineering on December 8, 2016, and the optimistic goal was to finish up the car by the time SPE shut down for the Christmas/New Year’s holiday break. Well, we missed that goal, mostly because the SPE owner, lead tech on my car and I had not worked on a USDM MA71 in at least 26-years. In fact, Crimson Tide was the first ever MKIII turbo worked on by SPE, which was founded in 1996, well into the MKIV Supra craze. As a result, our estimate of time for certain tasks was woefully inaccurate in some instances and overtaken by events in others.

Still, a LOT was accomplished in the time allocated to the car and, as noted in my post above, I brought her home on February 8, 2017, exactly two months after dropping her off. This timeframe is misleading somewhat because of the aforementioned holiday break, but to give you a sense of the work accomplished, here is a synopsis of my written instructions (except for items #17 and #19) when I delivered the car to SPE on December 8, 2016:

Initially, my goal of creating a period-correct HKS MA70 was quite fleeting. Here I was trying to build a car with aftermarket parts that had long since been discontinued. For the first time in my car-modifying experience, I was forced to seek out used parts on eBay, other auction sites and Supra-centric message boards. For a guy who has bad luck if he has any luck at all, several fortuitous events occurred no one could have predicted.

The first of these was the discovery of a NIB HKS MA70 FMIC by member Suprapilot…. in New Zealand of all places. With the indispensable help of Wellington, NZ resident, and SF board member, Mr Ree RZ, I was able to secure this highly coveted MA70 FMIC, but not before we lost it temporarily, regained it for good and Reith Paterson (Mr Ree RZ) experiencing a 7.8 earthquake the day he was to ship the FMIC to me. As you can imagine, I hugged the FMIC box like a long lost loved one when I finally had it in my possession.

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Following are some of the inspection pics Mr Ree RZ sent to me to ensure I was getting exactly what I had paid for. Some of these pics may be duplicated elsewhere in this thread, but I cannot dispense with this topic without paying tribute to the good work done by Mr Ree RZ on my behalf:

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I did not want to deliver the car to SPE without having all parts in hand, so I spent a great deal of time looking for discontinued HKS parts (VPC, GCC, turbo timer, etc.), hoping that what I purchased was exactly as the seller represented. I was fortunate, in that everything I purchased was in very good to excellent condition. I was also fortunate to purchase parts in excellent condition from SF members in good standing (502Bill; GCC), (sixpack; C’s short shifter; VPC 550 cc E-PROM), (Nick Stonawski/In2Twins; VPC) and sellers in Japan with quality HKS stuff no longer in production.

I purchased another set of valve covers on Supra Mania, and OEM turbo heat shields on CelicaSupra.com, to replace the ones already on the car. I, then, had the valve covers refinished and the heat shields ceramic coated with the 2100 degree F stuff SPE uses on its various GTR packages:

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Here are a few different pics of my parts stash as it grew over time before taking the car to SPE:

Brand new, approximately 30-year old HKS first-gen turbo timer:

HKS SSQV 7M-GTE Blow-off Valve:

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At this juncture, the work program was proceeding efficiently, if a bit slower than we originally anticipated. We knew early on that finishing the car before the Christmas break was not in the cards. Custom work and the acquisition of a new turbo would see to that.

When I dropped off the car, the plan was to remove the upgraded, OEM turbo and manifold, replace all lines and hoses and re-install. And, that’s exactly what happened the first day back from the Christmas/New Year’s break. Unfortunately for the SPE techs, but VERY fortunate for me, my ace parts finder, Suprapilot, struck again.

Suprapilot forwarded to me a link to an expired eBay sale of, you guessed it, the infamous, and exceedingly rare, Garrett/HKS T-04E Sport Turbo Upgrade. Yee haw!! The sale of the turbo/downpipe/manifold had expired on December 26, 2016 and the seller, just a few miles away in Long Beach, CA, said nobody was paying attention. Well, I was!

Long story short, I was able to purchase the HKS kit direct from the seller (avoiding eBay fees) just in time for the SPE techs to finish up re-installing the original, upgraded, OEM CT 26 and OEM manifold. The looks on the techs’ faces were priceless when they saw me walk into the facility with this one day after re-installing the OEM set-up:

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To be fair, SPE had GTRs stacked like pallets waiting for various projects to be completed, and all the work allocated to my car was just creating additional stress for the crew. The crew chief, and GTR engine builder, plus the chief GTR tuner, were both on my car, so spending more time on my car than originally anticipated created a bit of angst for all concerned. Soon, though, the idea of creating a real deal HKS MA70 took hold, as did working on a car that was older than all but two members of the back-of-the-shop crew.

Here are a couple pics GTR motors in the engine room that were, momentarily, stress inducers while all the love and affection was being doled out to Crimson Tide:

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Remember when I said, we underestimated the time it would take to complete some of the tasks outlined in my list above? Well, when I had a brand new MKIII turbo in 1990, I installed a CarTech T04B35 single turbo upgrade, a CarTech Rising Rate Fuel Pressure Regulator, Lucas 525 cc injectors, an HKS exhaust that was, subsequently, replaced by a Trust exhaust, Suspension Techniques springs and bars, C’s short shifter and OZ Racing wheels. That’s it. Being a brand new car, everything was in excellent condition and I could not have imagined having to take off the front bumper, dropping the tranny, and a bunch of other stuff, to carry out my work program.

Take a look at just SOME of the bolts requiring removal when taking off the front bumper. MKII and MKIII Supras have an incredible number of bolts, screws fasteners and other trinkets that must be accessed, and wrestled with, in order to successfully remove the front bumper. The MKIV front bumper is a walk in the park by comparison:

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Some items in the work program happened so quickly, I did not have the opportunity to take, or download, relevant pics from SPE. As a result, pics of the RC Engineering fuel injectors, the NGK wires and plugs, installation of the C’s short shifter, dropping and cleaning the R-154 and some other items are not included. Another reason these pics are missing is that I inadvertently deleted some from my phone, tech-illiterate that I am.

After Wreckless drove my car on the SIV2016 Scenic Drive, he knew exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned to him in a subsequent conversation that my Fidanza flywheel and ACT XTSS clutch did not always play friendly with one another when I was caught in SoCali bumper-to-bumper traffic. The first time I noticed, I had been in such traffic for the better part of two-hours, and the OEM R154 shifter occasionally seem to lose its place when traversing neutral to another gear or coming to a stop. With the ACT clutch and aluminum Fidanza flywheel having different heat expansion properties, it created momentary “confusion” during clutch engagement/disengagement. The solution? An OEM flywheel donated by Wreckless that SPE had resurfaced.

Along with the C’s shifter, NIB R-154 tranny mount and resurfaced OEM flywheel, the shift characteristics of clutch/gearbox improved noticeably, eliminating the problem altogether, and has continued to get better the more work I’ve put into driving the car. The C’s shifter does what it does best and makes shifting in all conditions more pleasurable than it was before.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted a period-correct, piggy-back engine management system. The question was, would I be able to source the necessary parts to make my dream a reality? As noted earlier, I received lots of assistance and I could not be more pleased with the end result.

After installing various piggy-back items in the glove box of my anthracite metallic MKIV hardtop, I knew I wanted to do the same thing with Crimson Tide, pristine MKIII car that she is.

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The car came with a Tanabe downpipe, high-flow catalytic convertor and a Tanabe Touring Medallion exhaust, which I like a lot and had not planned on changing. When, however, I was able to source the HKS sport turbo upgrade kit, to make the car complete, from an HKS perspective, I purchased a NIB HKS exhaust from Drift Motion, the same place I purchased Crimson Tide’s HID head lights.

When fitting the new exhaust, we found that the Tanabe cat and downpipe were not properly aligned, creating an exhaust leak of which I was unaware until installing the new exhaust was attempted. The fix required several on/off scenarios involving, cutting, rotating and rewelding and properly aligning:

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Some of these pics you’ve seen elsewhere in this thread (or something similar), but I thought I would conclude this build thread with pics of the HKS parts installed as part of Crimson Tide’s Phase II. Here they are:

Here’s the deal with the HKS exhaust. It is much quieter than I remember my 1990-era HKS being. In fact, truth be told, it’s too quiet for me, so I’m torn between negatively affecting the HKS-ness of the car and re-installing the Tanabe exhaust. The Tanabe is already quiet, but the HKS exhaust is quieter still. Even though I do not want the car announcing its presence from blocks away, I do want to hear more of that famous Supra straight-six sound I’ve become addicted to. Help!

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When I brought Crimson Tide home from SPE, she was more than a bit dirty. I didn’t have enough time to do the job as thoroughly as I would like, but I took care of the exterior with as much as the receding light permitted.

If you’re still with me, thanks for plowing through all the details. Thanks again as well, to all the Supra community members that made this all possible, especially, Patrick Nail (previous owner of Crimson Tide), Mr Ree RZ, Suprapilot, Roger Reyes, Jeff Boardman (Wreckless) and SP Engineering.

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So, I’m driving along in Crimson Tide on a pleasant sunny day, going to the public storage facility to exchange cars when I notice the “bird cage” warning light briefly light up and, just as quickly, disappear. I could be completely wrong about this but, when a similar light came on in my 1990 25+ years ago, I could have sworn it was a low brake fluid light. In any event, I determined it was the “low coolant” light so I immediately parked the car until I could figure out what was going on.

Of course, initial thoughts concerning the 7M-GTE seemingly always revolve around the BHG topic. While I figured this was a possibility, I did not think it was a probability. Patrick Nail, the seller of the car, had already done an engine-out rebuild because of “very early signs of a BHG” as shown by the pics below:

The BHG engine rebuild had been done properly, including all recommended machine work, an HKS 1.2 mm bead-type metal head gasket, brand new OEM gaskets, brand new OEM bearings, brand new OEM oil squirters, ARP head studs and the like.

I checked the radiator and everything looked good. Checked the overflow tank and found it was very low. Not truly understanding what this might mean, I called Jose Valle of Kaizen Motorsports and arranged to have him meet me at my storage facility so I wouldn’t have to drive the car to him in case it was the dreaded BHG. Jose had recently moved to Riverside, CA and, now, resides only about 15 miles or so from where I live.

Jose brought his BHG tester and immediately went to work. As soon as the results came back negative, Jose told me “I think there is a leak and I’m pretty sure I know where it’s coming from”. Quickly, he stuck his phone underneath the intake manifold, snapped a few pics and came up with this:

Jose knew exactly what parts to order and took care of that right away. In the meantime, I filled the overflow tank with distilled water, drove the car briefly and determined the “bird cage” remained unlit for the duration of my short drive. All I had to do at that point was to wait for the parts to arrive and for Jose to find time for me in his busy schedule.

That day came last week but, before work could start on the leak issue, Jose sent me the following pic:

Yup, a broken fan shroud. How it happened is beyond me. I believe it to be age-related (28 years old), but that’s just a guess. So, in addition to fixing the leak, Jose installed a new OEM shroud as part of the work completed.

Since resolving this issue involved removing the upper and lower intake manifolds, the throttle body, the upper piping and hoses, I told Jose to replace everything that needed it while complete access was in play. As a result, the water bypass hose and about a dozen other hoses were replaced (with all-new OEM clips and clamps), along with the intake manifold gasket No.1, the air surge tank to intake manifold gasket and the throttle body gasket.

In addition to this, Jose had two spare 92+ knock sensors which were used to replace my existing sensors. Jose rewired the sensor plugs to new style and installed the knock sensor plug and pin kit. He also installed EV1 injector plugs for the Bosch-style injector, sealed, and wired in the new injector plugs to the main harness to allow direct plug-in to the new injector plugs. He topped everything off with a mixture of Toyota Red coolant and distilled water and, last, I had him remove my Tanabe Medalion exhaust and replace it with the HKS LET-16 exhaust.

The following shows the in-progress pics Jose sent to me since he knew I wanted to update this thread:

Like the fan shroud, this is one of those things I cannot explain how it was missed (if it was) when my used HKS EVC boost controller was originally installed. Of course, the boost reference for my HKS adjustable fuel pressure regulator would be affected by the clogged line as well. Fortunately, nothing bad happened and everything is operating just as Messrs. Hasagawa and Kitigawa envisioned.

After all this work, Jose test drove the car and pronounced in “tip top” condition. I do not know whether or not there is a placebo effect going on, but the car drives better than it ever has, is smoother and quieter at idle (to the degree I stalled it leaving the driveway at Jose’s place) and pulls hard (!) and smoothly on the freeway.

Here’s a pic of her after a recent wash and wax. Thanks if you have read this far:

I'm a bit confused. I posted the links just as you suggested, but the site adds a bunch of stuff that does not show up until after I click "submit". My links are no different than the ones previously posted in this thread. I will try to get back on it later today.

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Unfortunately, I am a tech illiterate, although I have tried everything suggested but, still, no results. Notice how showed two links for each one I posted? I went back to the document I created before posting on SF and here. Made the suggested changes, but I'm still getting two identical links for everyone I post (on the same line). It seems no matter what I post, this craziness results. I even tried copying and pasting from SF, but no cigar.